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Emmideer
Oct 20, 2011

Lovely night, no?
Grimey Drawer
Thinking of getting into this, I have a few technical questions:

Pros and Cons of a pen name? Is it strictly required to register a DBA for a pen name? (Note: I will not be writing erotica)

What's the minimum non-free price on amazon for self-publishing? If there's not one, (aka I could hypothetically charge 2 cents), is there an expected minimum price, aka people will not tend to buy things below 0.99 dollars?

How many words do people tend to expected per cent of price (starting at the minimum or expected minimum price)? I know this can be variable by genre and quality of those words matters too, but my general plan is to match a word-count to minimum price for a serialized-type storytelling.

Sorry if these are difficult to answer questions, I'm trying to formulate a business plan based on serialized writing.

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Emmideer
Oct 20, 2011

Lovely night, no?
Grimey Drawer

ArchangeI posted:

Depends on how many genres you want to be active in. Think of an author name as a brand. Some genres are compatible (Fantasy and Sci-fi), some considerably less so (hard mil-sci-fi/Romance). Cross-promotion of your books gets more difficult the more pen names you have, though. Think about the audience you're aiming at and what they would expect to find in your catalog. Exception: romance should have a female pen name (and I suppose hard sci-fi sells better with a male pen name).

99 cents is the minimum, and most people will assume a 99 cent title is worth every single cent and no more. Most works work better at a 2.99 price point, which both gives you bigger royalties and makes it look like you actually believe your work is worth something. There are exceptions, of course.


I don't think you can really fit that to a formula. People don't buy 20k words of fantasy romance, they buy a story. But then again, Amazon is running a special program for serials, which is 99 cents per installment I believe, minimum 10k words.

I checked out the serial program, which they are not currently accepting submission for, but I can still publish in that format through KDP. The minimum 10,000 words per submission at 99 cents is a good baseline, thanks. It seems to range between that and 25,000 words per installment for a serial based on what I found.

Emmideer
Oct 20, 2011

Lovely night, no?
Grimey Drawer
I was thinking serialized YA fantasy, a shotgun approach taking advantage of the serialized format to test both writing and marketing efforts. If something works I can extend it into a longer serialization and if it doesn't I can seek to end it in two-ish more 'parts'. Once any given story is complete, it can be compiled into the 2.99 price point (or higher if very long) for the higher royalty rate, with the first 'part' of the serial going from 0.99 to free for marketing. After my overall popularity and digital presence grows (which it should do faster than standard format thanks to quicker releases of shorter works), then I can move into longer works if I get a sense that my readership is interested.

I see the following problems with this strategy:
I will need to be on a consistent release schedule, or readers will have my head. Writing a second part of a serial before publishing the first part will help with this.
More time spent on management of inventory.
Market might not be there on the basis of serialization, if not genre. It'll take awhile to correctly assess this, especially since I'm starting as an unknown writer.
Covers? If I get a completely different cover for each 'part' it'll be more expensive and potentially confusing, but if I keep the same cover with small tweaks then that might also be confusing.

Emmideer
Oct 20, 2011

Lovely night, no?
Grimey Drawer

Plankhandles posted:

Perfect timing that you bring up r/fantasy, because I was just coming in here to ask a question about networking.

I spend a lot of time lurking this thread (sometimes the facts and data are fascinating) but I haven't found a good reason to post until now. Basically I was wondering how much networking pays off when publishing your first through, I don't know, fourth or fifth books as you begin to build a catalog. Does it actually bring in a significant readership or potential reviewers to be worth spending the time it takes to go from site to site building a minor presence and getting familiar with a few people? Would that time be better spent writing, reading, and advertising the traditional way?

There's really no way not to sound goony as hell asking this, but... Are friends worth it?

With the caveat that I haven't networked for the specific purpose of self-publishing, my response is you should be on these sites anyway, because they're where you learn a bit about what's popular, what's not, what sorts of things people complain about, and so on. Spending a few weeks even lurking will help your writing process. While you're there, hey, why not get engaged in discussion and pitch out ideas, too? Oh, hey, you're suddenly a community member, now it doesn't look like hocking when you talk about that book you just published.

It's a process. If you go in with the mindset "friends = money", then you're not going to get very far, but if you don't go at all you'll be worse off for it.

Emmideer
Oct 20, 2011

Lovely night, no?
Grimey Drawer

Ghostwoods posted:

But if you want to make a living off this, you're much better off sinking that time into working up to a new book every 4-6 weeks, and focussing on building up your mailing list.

I want to ask about mailing lists, actually. As I understand it, an essential part of self-publishing is having your website and mailing list to announce new books. Else, how will you maintain fans? But what methods are you using to build that list? Only politely asking anyone who visits your site, which you presumably linked to from amazon?

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